George Orwell, Cosmopolitanism, and Global Justice

George Orwell, Cosmopolitanism, and Global Justice

Chapter:

(p.40)
2 George Orwell, Cosmopolitanism, and Global Justice

Source:

Cosmopolitanisms

Author(s):

Bruce Robbins

Publisher:

NYU Press

DOI:10.18574/nyu/9781479829682.003.0003

Drawing on the works of George Orwell, Bruce Robbins asks how cosmopolitanism might become a force for a more democratic redistribution of global resources. Orwell himself had this goal in mind but saw it as requiring considerable sacrifice on the part of the more prosperous. Examining Orwell’s BBC broadcasts to India during World War II, Robbins suggests that Orwell saw wartime rationing as surprising evidence that people were willing to deny themselves material goods for some greater good; hence they might be capable of doing so again in the interest of greater global equality.

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